PARKLIFE

(2011) – Michael Cacoyannis Foundation

 

 

Text: Stelios Lykouresis
Director – Concept: Michalis Konstantatos
Assistant Director: Iphigenia Vassiliou
Actors: Yota Argyropoulou, Thanassis Dovris
Stage – Costume Design: Giorgos Karagiorgos
Music: Giorgis Sakellariou
Lights: Yannis Fotou
Graphic Design: Panos Agelopoulos
Production team: Konstantinos Aivaliotis, Giorgos Theocharidis, Alexis Katsaros
Photos: Tasos Vrettos
Casting: Athens Casting
Period: 2 May 2011- 3 June 2011
Duration: 60 minutes

  

Summary & plot …

A car arrives at an underground garage. We see two passengers, a man and a woman in their 30s. They park the car. The woman is unconscious in the passenger seat and the man helps her to regain her senses. With his help she starts recalling faces, situations, his identity as well as the way they ended up together in that dark park place. However, it is unclear if all the clues he gives her actually true.

Is there something in her mind buried from another reality?
Is this man a colleague of hers indeed, who helped her at a difficult moment? Or is he someone else hiding his real identity?

In a quickly paced dialogue the story of these two persons begins unfolding and up to the end of the play they leave us with doubts and questions about their actual truth. Their relationship and the reason why they are in this garage remain obscure until the very end. And then suddenly it all becomes clear….

Using as a tool the atmosphere of mystery and humour, our work functions as a metaphor reflecting modern reality and how these two persons experience it.Their love story intertwines with their needs, desires, anxieties and their effort to live up to their expectations in a fruitful, personal and creative way.

Our goal is, through the personal story of our two characters, to seize the opportunity to speak about our times and the challenges faced today by people. The absolute realism of the story and the whole project as such is often expressed through humour and sarcasm, elements that give greater truth and intensity to intimate moments.

 

 

 

A few words about the project …

Through the verbal conflict at the front seat of a car the two characters challenge the boundaries of their roles as professionals as well as human beings. In this performance, where theatric language encounters the cinematic one, the power of live-action is framed by images and sounds. The play’s “world reality” is being introduced to the audience in an entirely unexpected way, thanks to the novelty of the directional concept as well as the originality of the text. In all simplicity and through the structure of cinematic language, the performance approaches social issues and personal relationships of modern times. The performance, absolutely contemporary, sets for discussion the financial crisis’ and unemployment issues and how these circumstances affect the relationship between two young adults.

The performance uses the car park of Michael Cacoyannis Foundation. In this particular space a car becomes the main set prop for the performance which functions as an independent mobile theatrical stage turning spectators into witnesses, even voyeurs, of a constantly subverting situation. The space and the design of the appropriate acoustic environment constitute the essential environment of this work.

 

 

Press – Critics
Reviews published for the show «Parklife»…

Athens Voice – Issue: 348 – 25/05/2011, Stamatis Kraounakis: “Conversely again, I was highly fond of a play at the car park area of Cacoyannis, called “Parklife. ” A performance of Michael Konstantatos that submerges, finally, from the mass of the usually pretentious “new groups” – what a despair they are!… Finally, I say, an authentic proposal! The text written by Stelios Lykouresis reminded me of the very good writings of the great Greek writer Manioti. A couple is trapped in a car park: clever, effective, well-lit, simple, accurate, functional: we saw ourselves across, bravo!”.

Athinorama – Mina Katheri – 23/5/11
Parklife «accelerates speed»
Using a car as its stage, the theater group Blindspot comes back dynamically (after the “Fall” in the Bios 2009) with “Parklife” taking place at the garage of Cacoyannis Foundation. Inside an outworldly, colourless and timeless setting we witness the relationship of an unemployed young couple, the insecurity and the upheaval that reserve and illuminate the human need to feel creative, productive, useful and, therefore, lovable and desirable. But what really impresses the most is the special theatrical staging with the two actors almost constantly in the car and the windshield lit that “borrows” the charm of a movie. No wonder considering that director M. Konstantatos has previously shot three short films, has won awards from international film festivals and even received an invitation to Cannes this year to work at the scenario of his first feature film entitled “Luton”.

Stavroula Panagiotaki – Athens Voice: “Their show «Parklife», a performance that takes place in a car, is smashing. Yota Argyropoulou and Thanassis Dovris leave us breathless. Only a few performances to go, it’s on for just two more weeks”.

Tatiana Kapodistrias – tospirto.net: “At the garage of Cacoyannis Foundation, Piraeus 206 “On the basement of the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation a theatre avant- garde experiment is flourishing. There arrives the theatre group ‘blind spot’ to tell us their own story. A story that combines the aesthetics of cinema -what unfolds on stage reminds us of a long cinematic shot- with an existential quest at its peak. The entire action of the play written by Stelios Lykouressis and directed by Michael Konstantatos is compressed at the front seat of a parked car, in which a young advertising executive suddenly awakens (Yota Argyropoulou) without remembering what preceded, how she got there, nor who the hell is the young man next to her (Thanassis Dovris) … And then starts a verbal battle that ranges from personal matters to social structures, the ‘must-dos’ and the pretentious ‘have-tos’ that govern the entire modern life. The title of the project is «Parklife». Much to the point one has to admit, since ‘parking’, literally and metaphorically, is a situation that undoubtedly often defines our existence …”

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